


Ambiguities in Death

by frequencyshift



Category: Machine of Death - ed. Bennardo/Malki/North, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-19 22:12:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4762925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frequencyshift/pseuds/frequencyshift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It didn't give you the date and it didn't give you specifics, it just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words DROWNED or CANCER or OLD AGE or CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Cause of death comes to Storybrooke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crushed Heart

> _It didn't give you the date and it didn't give you specifics. It just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words DROWNED or CANCER or OLD AGE or CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN. And it was frustratingly vague in its predictions: dark, and seemingly delighting in the ambiguities of language OLD AGE, it had already turned out, could mean either dying of natural causes, or shot by a bedridden man in a botched home invasion. The machine captured the old-world sense of irony in death - you can know how it's going to happen, but you'll still be surprised when it does._
> 
> -Introduction, _Machine of Death_  
> 

It isn't until Emma is arrested that she finds out. The only state that covers testing while in foster care is Hawaii, from what she's read, and she's never had a guardian willing to pay to find out. Even the ones who might have cared, once the technology came out, couldn't afford it with all the mouths to feed. Once you're in state custody, though, they have to make sure no lawyer is going to sue for lack of due diligence.

After all, if your slip says _Overdose_ , they better do everything in their power to make sure you can't get your hands on any contraband.

So after she's escorted from the court and taken to jail, after a night spent sleeping in her last single cell, she's taken onto a bus with her belongings in a shopping bag, a dozen other women on the way to the local prison. Just her luck to have her eighteenth birthday two days before sentencing.

Rushed off the bus, prodded into a menacing building: it's cold, and quiet in a way that isn't quiet at all. There's a hum of noise, maybe tension vibrating the air to the point that she can hear it. Emma's processed through, and right before the pile of sheets and pillows there's a man in a lab coat, a small machine on wheels next to him.

"Finger," he says, boredom thick in his voice. She's seen eyes deader than his, but just barely.

Emma sticks her forefinger onto the indent he motions to, wincing at the pinprick as her blood is drawn. She rubs the small wound with the pad of her thumb, waiting anxiously as the machine whirs. Finally, after what seems like a lifetime, it spits out a strip of paper no bigger than a fortune from a cookie.

Before she can read it, the doctor - or nurse, or technician, she's not entirely sure - snatches it up, moving his pen to mark something on the clipboard in his hand. His pencil doesn't connect with the page, though, as his brow furrows.

"Hey Mick!" he calls, lifting his eyes towards a guard. "Come look at this."

The guard comes over. "What's up?"

The doctor hands over the slip. "What do you think. Suicide? Or accident?"

A scowl crosses the guards face. "Shit, I don't know." He looks up at her, takes note of her age, the paleness of her skin, the jaggedness of her bones. "You get dumped, sweetheart?"

She blanches.

"Fuck. Better put her under suicide watch until psych checks her out," the guard says, handing the slip back.

The doctor grunts, writes something down, then directs her to stand to the side - different then the women who went before her. She's to wait, apparently.

"What does it _say_?" Emma finally blurts out, desperate to know.

The slip is turned towards her, finally letting her see the small block letters.

_Crushed Heart_

Well, shit.

~*~*~

She's cleared by psych not once, not twice, but three times.

The first is directly after she arrives. Neal broke her heart, but she's more angry than depressed. She'd rather punch him in the face than give him the satisfaction of driving her to kill herself.

The second is after she finds out she's pregnant. She's put on some weight since she arrived, but considering the relentless harassment received from guards and inmates alike over her cause of death ("Such a sensitive _soul_ , Swan" or "C'mere, duckling, let me show you a heartbreaker" or "How much weight on her chest do you think it would take to crush it?") means she doesn't have the best of luck in the cafeteria. So it's unusual, and it's noticed. She's devastated when the results come back, because she can't believe that _asshole_ got her pregnant. Can't believe she's going to give birth in a fucking prison. When she tells them she's keeping the kid, though, they let her back into gen pop.

The third is after the baby is born. She does her best to not even look at him, won't turn her head even at the doctor's words of possibility. She's gross, and crying, and she knows he's just _right there_ , but she has to believe that he has a chance out there. She knows the system, but anything has to be better than being incarcerated. This time, she can't quite dissuade them. It's almost a month before she's given the all clear. Not long after that, she's released early, the system crowded and her crime minor, and she does her time in the halfway house before leaving Arizona like a bat out of hell.

~*~*~

It's weird when she gets to Storybrooke. Emma knows that most people consider their C.O.D. private, but the one time she broaches the subject with Mary Margaret all she gets back is a look of general confusion.

It's almost three months into her stay, just after she becomes sheriff, that she discovers the town doesn't even have a machine. She even asks at the hospital, but it takes her four tries before someone even knows what she's talking about. Doctor Whale just shrugs. "No one here seems all that interested, so we've never had one," he says before returning to his rounds.

Emma's spent most of her time in cities, or in towns that are actually too small to have one. Even then, in the latter it'd been common for locals to travel to the nearest machine, almost a rite of passage. So an entire town that doesn't want to know how they die just seems too weird for words.

~*~*~

Seeing the box with Kathryn's heart is the first time Emma feels well and truly rattled. It isn't crushed, but she's never seen one before, and part of her knows she could just reach out with a hand, grab it-

It's a weird, dark thought, and she's fighting the bile down. Or maybe that's just because she knows whose heart this is, and that in and of itself is just wrong.

~*~*~

Cora has her hand inside her chest.

This is it.

She knew this was a possibility. The moment she discovered that Aurora was controlled by her heart, removed from her chest, a thought had clicked in her head. _Oh. So that's it._

She could still die from a car crash. Or a falling steel beam during construction. Maybe a piano, rolling down a hill and on top of her.

Cora's hand is inside her chest, and she's trying to rip it out.

_I never thought it would be so literal._

But it's not coming out. It hurts, and her body jerks, but Emma's heart is still firmly in her chest.

~*~*~

Emma follows Regina out of the diner. "Archie made cake," she says, gesturing vaguely behind her. "Sure you don't want a piece?"

Regina murmurs her refusal, offers thanks.

She turns to head back in, stops. "Hey, um. Question."

The other woman blinks. She's softened, somehow. This version of the mayor is different from before Emma fell through the portal. David hasn't had much time to tell her everything that's happened, but she's heard enough to know that it's largely to do with Henry. "Yes, Ms. Swan?"

"Your moth- er, Cora," she stammers, not sure how to talk about the woman who birthed Regina and was the reason for a death curse stretched across the portal home. "She tried to take my heart."

"What?!" Regina exclaims, taking an involuntary step forward. Her eyes flicker up and down, ensuring Emma's survival despite the obvious knowledge. "Wait, tried?"

Emma nods, shoving her hands in her pocket. She huddles into the sweater she's wearing. "She couldn't."

Regina seems rocked by the fact, eyes flickering as a million thoughts run through her head. "Interesting," she finally says. She doesn't offer anything more.

"Yeah," Emma breathes. "What, um. I mean, do you know why she couldn't?"

It's a long moment before the other woman shakes her head, her dark hair falling softly against her face. "No. Not definitively."

"What about roughly?"

A small sigh of exasperation. "Perhaps due to the nature of your birth. A child of true love. It's not hard to think that the power of that could protect you, in this aspect. I really can't say, though."

Emma nods. "Thanks," she offers. "So, does that mean it's always gonna be safe? No one can take it out?" She wrinkles her nose. "How does that even work? Can anyone with magic do it?"

"Once again, without knowing the exact cause, I couldn't say. Normally, anyone with magic or the right enchantment can. You could, given the right training." Regina tilts her head, studying Emma with the intensity of a student looking at particularly interesting specimen. "I would hazard a guess that unless you plan on reaching into your own chest and pulling out your heart, it's safe for now." A ghost of a smile crosses her face. "We could test the theory, if you like."

The idea makes Emma nauseous. "No thank you."

Regina chuckles, the sound catching Emma off guard. "If that will be all, Ms. Swan."

Emma nods. "Thanks. Um, are you sure you don't want to at least say good night to Henry? He invited you."

~*~*~

Later that night, lying in bed, Emma places a hand over her chest, feeling the steady thump of her heartbeat in her palm.

Safe. Maybe the machine wasn't being literal, because she could never see a circumstance where she would choose to take her own heart out and give it to someone.

_I'd never trust my heart to anyone._


	2. Key

Neal isn't sure when exactly the machines start popping up. It's sometime AE - After Emma - and he'd spent several months in a drug-induced haze. More than several months, really. When he finally crawls his way out of the last ditch, it's with the assistance of a couple of paramedics, and it's straight onto a gurney.

It's later, after the drugs have been flushed from his system and the hospital kicks him out of the badly-needed bed, that he finds himself in front of the vending machine. He's in desperate need of some chocolate, preferably with peanuts, but the only thing in his wallet is a credit card a hairs breadth from maxed.

Next to the candy and soda machines, though, is another. It looks like one of those stupid quarter machines, takes your weight and spits out a fortune. But $49.95 is a bit steep for a fortune, even if it does have the words _Know Your Fate!_ emblazoned on it in comic sans. It makes him curious, so he steps up. Reads the fine print.

The premise is ridiculous. A machine that tells you how you'll die? Even in his world, the only one who could were oracles, and the power was rare. Even papa didn't know. How could science discover something that involved, well, fate?

It tickles him. He even laughs, drawing a concerned look from a nurse walking by. Then he pulls out the credit card, hopes he has enough on it, and slides it into the payment slot. After a moment, a pad lights up, and he puts his finger on it. A quick pinprick.

The machine doesn't take more than a few seconds before the slip comes out. He grabs it, glances at it, then laughs again.

_Key_

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he asks no one, still chuckling. He tosses the slip in the direction of the trashcan, doesn't bother picking it up when it misses, and heads out of the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend for this to be quite so short, but there you have it. I get the feeling that all updates will be variable in size.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm quite fond of the "soulmates mark" trope, and I've always wanted to write something to that effect. Inspiration still hasn't struck, though, and this is what drifted into my mind instead. I love the anthology _Machine of Death_ , and I thought it'd be interesting to apply it to this world.
> 
> I have no plan on characters I'll tackle, although I have a solid idea for at least one and rough ideas for three more. I might revisit some - Emma is certainly a viable candidate for this. I also have no real idea how dark this could get, whether I'll actually kill someone off, or how far I'll drift into the various romances in the fandom. I guess what I'm saying is, "tags and rating to be updated when necessary".
> 
> Hope you enjoy! It's a neat exercise, and I can honestly say I'd love to see other people try it out too.


End file.
